


Wherever They Roam (The Sum of Our Influences)

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2017-2018, Apprentice Dean Winchester, Cameos, Dark Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Has Powers, Hell, Holly Poly, Mind Meld, Multi, Psychic Abilities, Purgatory, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 16:01:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13298322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: Dean learns the meaning of power, and how seductive it can be.





	Wherever They Roam (The Sum of Our Influences)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [storiesfortravellers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/gifts).



> For Holly Poly. Rating for the dark elements only.

It’s in hell that Dean learns for the first time what power really is. He learns from the moments when it is taken away, and he learns from the moment when he takes it back.

*~*~*

Meg is there, like so many other times, one long, drawn-out moment of _MegMegMeg_. When she pulls from him the sounds and sensations she wants to run through the fabric of him, he feels his own power mix with hers. He feels the way that her energy grates against his, and the ways he’s been worn down in grooves to take her energy like a vessel.

He begins to know her.

And he studies the way that she works. 

There are those who tell the story of Alastair wearing down his apprentice and bringing him forth from the rack. But Meg watches Dean watch her as she works, and there is an understanding in her eyes.

When Dean rips free of the rack, bits of him, rivulets of spirit, remaining forever embedded in the device used to torture him, it is Meg who has given him the impetus to pull free and embrace the true potential of his darkness.

*~*~*

The heavens shake, and Castiel leaves his barracks for the last time before he will meet Dean Winchester soul to soul. He has watched the entirety of Dean’s life. He has been given an angelic understanding of what has brought Dean to this moment in his journey.

The truth is that Dean is as infinite as any soul. He will never end, any more than Castiel himself will. But his suffering now must come to an end, even when that suffering comes as the direct result of that which he metes out toward others.

For those who torture are tortured themselves, and Castiel can feel this from here, connected to the pain of the one he is most bonded to in the cosmos.

He understands the pain that Alastair and Meg gave, exquisite as they felt it was.

The brief moments when Meg has been able to taste humanity make hell all the more excruciating, and it is with these feelings that she unleashes everything she has against Dean.

This is the intent of hell, to pit everlasting souls against one another in battles that cannot be won.

As the one who has pulled Dean from the rack with her intent, Meg has formed a bond of her own with Dean. 

For if he wishes to claim it, Dean may call himself Meg’s apprentice in the ways of hell, the bite of its pain.

It is a cycle that is known across the cosmos, and it cannot be ignored. It will not. For Meg has made her mark as surely as any chief torturer has.

She will tell Dean much later that she had wanted him, and the battle of wills between herself and Alastair had begun early. Yet in ways that were beyond explaining, Meg had known how to fight for longer, to claim him, to know him as truly hers. She had wanted it more.

*~*~*

When Castiel slips inside the gate of hell, he moves toward Dean with singular purpose. He finds his charge amidst a scene that will fall away from Dean’s memory. 

Dean stands, dark material in hand, ripping through the fabric of a genderless bit of soul. He has been exerting himself in this moment, and Meg watches, approving.

Perhaps it is this that shows the true effects, the cost of power, for the Dean of other times would not stand so close to her, as if they are close in alignment as well as physical proximity.

Dean’s eyes are wild with craving, and it is not something that calms itself until Castiel pushes Meg away with the force of air, knocking her temporarily away from her senses and gripping Dean tight to pull him from the hell of his own making.

Dean does not know his name, nor even what he looks like, but the imprint of energy from Castiel will now never leave him.

Castiel tells himself that it means very little that Dean will crave the touch of his power too.

*~*~*

So many years later, Dean still craves so very much. He holds it in, only to unleash it in the grim dark of Purgatory, with Benny at his side, but where any of this begins or ends is sometimes lost on Dean, who simply craves something pure.

*~*~*

He will always feel the two of them, and Alastair and Benny too, imprinted next to his heart, or maybe inside of it.

He remembers the moments that matter the most, slowly, slowly revealing themselves, and he feels the knowing of who they are, the idea that he can find them anywhere. And, forever, he will. He holds them close inside himself no matter how far any of them roam, and he tries to keep this to himself, knowing that at its core the admission might hurt Sam.

There are times he craves Purgatory, just as he craves being near to his angel, and even his demon.

When they are gone away, he can find them in his dreams or feel their thoughts slipping along his synapses.

There is a darkness inside of Dean that only those with that level of power can understand and find to dip into.

And still, Castiel comes back to him. Meg is drawn to his side as well. Perhaps she feels indebted for the times she was allowed to see the slip of his soul on the rack. 

He laughs to himself softly as he sees Castiel and Meg together, both unsure how they really got there, unclear on exactly what they themselves remember, but knowing that they crave each other like anyone else might crave a lover.

There is a third who will tie them together forever now, one who learned the cut of knives and the sting of love from the thrill of their immensity.

When they stand together, worried for Sam or aching with longing, theirs are three minds forever holding the same needs, the same basic experiences from three vantage points.

*~*~*

On the days Dean slips away from Sam, he calls to them quietly and each come, three sources of power joining inside of him. And gentle laughter bubbles from him as he realizes how far he’s come, still the man who withstood hell and the man who was extracted from unbearable pain by heaven. The man who has been used, and also learned to use. The man who is the apprentice, and the best hunter in Purgatory. The man who has befriended demons and vampires, but also the man who makes Sam Winchester’s favorite grilled cheese and learned to flip pancakes properly for Ben Braeden.

He is all those things, and in being all those things he gives himself to Castiel and to Meg, and he understands in his own, unique way what drew Sam into the hell of demon blood.

He takes it all anyway, letting the power calm him. Letting it be so much of him.

He would let either of them consume him. He can feel at any distance that their need mirrors his own.

They move through supernatural life as three must, together and apart, but the bonds never waver and they always have a baseline understanding of one another. Mutual, powerful, secret and theirs.

**Author's Note:**

> My first time shipping Dean/Cas, and my first significant fic with Meg because I was a bit intimidated, and I hope it came out all right.
> 
> This wasn't written "to" this song, but every time I think of "this" Dean, especially in his dark moments in hell, I think of this song, hokey as it may be. (Metallica: Until it Sleeps)
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/121274586/playlist/3hA01zJTFGvoTLN0l682dm


End file.
